Go to page

Member

Well you can start by hiring more women into prominent roles on the development and publishing side of games. So projects aren’t all being lead from one gender / race and naturally you will be creating more diverse content

You know what, I'm sick of this argument. It's bullshit. I know it. You know it. Let's just pretend like we fought it out already and get to the good stuff.

Diversity comes from creativity, not someone's background. Look at the game industry. In each game genre, there are maybe 5 people's names that come up. This entire industry is being built on the backs of maybe two dozen creative geniuses. Everybody else is just iterating on the gameplay diversity that this handful of people provided. The guy who came up with Assassin's Creed is a genius, the guy who came up with Assassin's Creed 17 is not. Mario 64? Genius. Ratchet and Clank? Not.

I want more people who fit into that select group of geniuses because even one more of them is going to do more for the game industry than a thousand anybody elses. And I do not give a shit what gender or race they are because their stuff will just get copied a thousand thousand times, so it only matters what they start, not what they finish. Even if it were true that black people made better games for black players (and it fucking isn't), they'd still just be recreating the same old shit with a new coat of "black people" paint. Actual diversity comes from new ideas, new directions, new types of products - it doesn't come from targeting a specific demographic.

The game industry is a poisonous fucking place that roots out these creative geniuses well before they are given a chance to make their mark, and they are leaving the industry by the boatloads. I mean, haven't you ever noticed that all the game designers you know the name of are in their 60s? It's no coincidence that the vast majority of new direction in gaming comes from the indie scene - because the corporate game industry would set them on fire and laugh as they roasted marshmallows on their screams.

You want more diversity in the game industry, fix THAT. You fix that and I could give a shit about whatever other crusade you want to campaign on. I will climb on whatever soapbox you need and get as many women hired as you want, just as a thank you for providing some actual fucking diversity to the game industry. Get me the next Shigeru Miyamoto, not the next Jade Raymond.

What exactly is straight white male about Tetris? Games aren't the deck of cards, they are the rules that make those cards matter. You are sitting there complaining that the King's crown is the wrong shade of yellow, while I'm sitting here complaining that I'm fucking sick of playing the same six variations of Poker every day.

Member

How bout you hire the best Person from all the ones who applied ?
Diverse Content ?
What the hell does this even mean, show me just one example in Games and i show you an Character who isnt an Great Female Lead, but a character who happens to be Female.
And Hollywood ?
Have you seen the ammount of shit in the last 10-15 Years ?
Ghostbusters, Oceans 8, Star Wars ?
Thats the kind of Female diverse Representation you want ?

Member

Why the firetruck, does it matter this is such a freaking waste of oxygen to even type it out.
We have a bankrupt creative Industry and We are worried about sexism, give me a freaking break, is the same thing happening in art? Is that Why all art from modern artists has been replaced with squares and disfunctional human identify forms. This discussion is simply a waste and i am getting so Sick and tired of it.

To everyone advocating this nonsens do something Else with your life, stop wasting food , stop wasting energy, try and go out and feel the energy of Nature, do you see any cats or dogs being sad about sexism? No you dont because they dont Care and neither should you. Good Day.

Member

Okay I need to get this off my chest as it been bugging the hell out of me lol

Watergate was the name of the hotel where the Scandal occurred oh, it had nothing to do with water or a gate, it took place at the Watergate hence the Watergate scandal.

So why in the name of all that is righteous are we naming everything #Gate now it comes with Scandal #inflategate, #gamergate, #Sheilagate, so on and so forth.

Are we so creatively inept we can't come up with a better term?

... okay, as for the article itself this is just a giant nothingBurger, yet again... more extremists getting offended for the sake of getting offended and bringing random games, and stories and people into it that have no real business being in it.

I will admit the complaint about Pokemon games gave me a chuckle, that was a new one.

Member

This whole sexism debate is just so out of date and has nothing to do with reality. Like seriously...every single woman i know, without even one single exception, who has a great self-worth and feels comfortable in her own skin likes being sexy every now and then. Of course often times these woman are exactly the ones that people would call "sexy" because of their body, shape. face etc.. That's just how it is. These are the facts. If you feel like shit and look like it, which is often your fault in 99% of the cases, of course you do not like to dress sexy and voluntarily expose yourself to others. And of course you're envious and jealous and against the women who are portrayed in a more feminine and sexy way because it often hurts you own self-worth, which btw has nothing to do with your looks.

Im blinded by Nostaliga when i say Movies in the 90s didnt have godawful "Diversity" and Sjw Agendas ?
And Oceans 8 was good ? The same movie as all the others in the Series, but this time with Whamen, which makes it new and fresh!
They certainly didnt get their Job because they happen to also Workship the same leftist Idology, which again, show me the Action and Fantasy Movies 10 Years ago with heavyhanded sjw messages.
I donno, do Directors in Honk Kong get their Job because they are Chinese ?
Could it be there is another Reason but Racism ?

Member

These lame articles that find sexism under every rock are getting annoying.

Gaming used to be looked at as a nerdy habit and a lot of females would look at you as a geek if you identified as a gamer, but now that gaming is super popular, all of a sudden these super sexist males are just holding women back.

The reality is that nobody is stopping women from picking up programming books and making their own games. This notion that someone should get fast tracked because they have different genitalia is laughable.

Member

The number of female protagonists in games still lags behind the abundance of male ones. Many children in the late 1990s played Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow on the Gameboy Colour, with gameplay centred around a male avatar.

Christ, those games didn't even have full colour.
The graphics in those games are pretty much so simple that you could imagine that it was a female character if you wanted. I mean you can select your name.
I don't think there's any point in the game that the character is referring to in third person so there's no "he" or "him".

Member

I hate to break it to the snowfloakes but.... everyone is sexist to some degree. Even the people who are crying about this are. Perhaps not at the very moment they are crying about it, but they are. Just get them out of their happy relationship and watch where the mind goes.

This whole debate is so stupid. Like sexism is something that can be erased... Our whole existence revolves about reproduction. You'll never get rid of sexism.

Member

You know what, I'm sick of this argument. It's bullshit. I know it. You know it. Let's just pretend like we fought it out already and get to the good stuff.

Diversity comes from creativity, not someone's background. Look at the game industry. In each game genre, there are maybe 5 people's names that come up. This entire industry is being built on the backs of maybe two dozen creative geniuses. Everybody else is just iterating on the gameplay diversity that this handful of people provided. The guy who came up with Assassin's Creed is a genius, the guy who came up with Assassin's Creed 17 is not. Mario 64? Genius. Ratchet and Clank? Not.

I want more people who fit into that select group of geniuses because even one more of them is going to do more for the game industry than a thousand anybody elses. And I do not give a shit what gender or race they are because their stuff will just get copied a thousand thousand times, so it only matters what they start, not what they finish. Even if it were true that black people made better games for black players (and it fucking isn't), they'd still just be recreating the same old shit with a new coat of "black people" paint. Actual diversity comes from new ideas, new directions, new types of products - it doesn't come from targeting a specific demographic.

The game industry is a poisonous fucking place that roots out these creative geniuses well before they are given a chance to make their mark, and they are leaving the industry by the boatloads. I mean, haven't you ever noticed that all the game designers you know the name of are in their 60s? It's no coincidence that the vast majority of new direction in gaming comes from the indie scene - because the corporate game industry would set them on fire and laugh as they roasted marshmallows on their screams.

You want more diversity in the game industry, fix THAT. You fix that and I could give a shit about whatever other crusade you want to campaign on. I will climb on whatever soapbox you need and get as many women hired as you want, just as a thank you for providing some actual fucking diversity to the game industry. Get me the next Shigeru Miyamoto, not the next Jade Raymond.

I don't understand your point here. Is it that Hollywood has pushed diversity and ended up ruining thirty and forty year old franchises like Ghostbusters and Star Wars?

What exactly is straight white male about Tetris? Games aren't the deck of cards, they are the rules that make those cards matter. You are sitting there complaining that the King's crown is the wrong shade of yellow, while I'm sitting here complaining that I'm fucking sick of playing the same six variations of Poker every day.

Member

. In each game genre, there are maybe 5 people's names that come up. This entire industry is being built on the backs of maybe two dozen creative geniuses. Everybody else is just iterating on the gameplay diversity that this handful of people provided. The guy who came up with Assassin's Creed is a genius, the guy who came up with Assassin's Creed 17 is not. Mario 64? Genius. Ratchet and Clank? Not.

First: names don't come up because the industry is doing its best to bury the name of the creative people, not because they don't exist.
The name you remember are old ,because back then, the publishing model was different and the team were smaller , making it easier to see the same face over and over.
Nowadays, publisher will be more inclined to put a PR person in front a journalist and not always the creative director (who will have been briefed anyways).

Second: saying that the entire 135 Billion $ industry is built on 2 dozen creative geniuses is ludicrous. Its the great man theory of history all over again.
I'm not saying that there isn't creative geniuses out there but i don't think they have nearly the impact or the weight you think they have.
Games are made by TEAMS, sure there is a leader but each member contribute enormously to the end product.
George Lucas didn't invent Star Wars alone, he had John Williams, Gary Kurtz, Ralph McQuarrie, Ben Burtt, John Dykstra, Gilbert Taylor, All legends in their own right.
You won't find any of these creative heads except megalomaniacs that take credits for a team effort.

Why do you think we remember Westwood Studios, Looking Glass, LucasArts, BULLFROG PRODUCTIONS. Because these teams were some of the most creative and beloved we had.

Third: saying that all the credit for a franchise goes to the creator is dumb. We have many, many games were the most creative ideas are explored in later editions.
AC: Black flag for example is the 4th, saying the developers who made it don't deserve credit for that is stupid.

Everything is a remix, is a remix, is a remix. Iteration is the name of the game.
The creation you are so fond of is knowing what to iterate on.

Member

First: names don't come up because the industry is doing its best to bury the name of the creative people, not because they don't exist.
The name you remember are old ,because back then, the publishing model was different and the team were smaller , making it easier to see the same face over and over.
Nowadays, publisher will be more inclined to put a PR person in front a journalist and not always the creative director (who will have been briefed anyways).

First, this would be a completely separate issue and still something that absolutely needs to be adjusted going forward. The way the industry minimizes and downplay talent is a way for them to prevent the talent from having any value in the marketplace, increasing their own value on the creativity of these people. That's a different issue, but still very much a part of what I'm talking about when I say the industry is a poisonous place for the creative geniuses.

Second, we know who the talent is. People figure it out. They go, "oh this game was good and that game was good... hey this guy worked on both". Or they read an interview with a producer and go, "this guy doesn't have a clue" or "this guy gets it and must be a part of why this game was so good". They try to hide the names, but given enough time and enough games, we usually figure it out. The problem is, the vast majority of these creative geniuses are leaving well before enough time and enough games.

Third, I was in the game industry. I'm speaking from experience. The corporate system is built around an oppressive and rigid bureaucracy, that protects itself from risks like creativity and vision.

Second: saying that the entire 135 Billion $ industry is built on 2 dozen creative geniuses is ludicrous. Its the great man theory of history all over again.
I'm not saying that there isn't creative geniuses out there but i don't think they have nearly the impact or the weight you think they have.
Games are made by TEAMS, sure there is a leader but each member contribute enormously to the end product.
George Lucas didn't invent Star Wars alone, he had John Williams, Gary Kurtz, Ralph McQuarrie, Ben Burtt, John Dykstra, Gilbert Taylor, All legends in their own right.
You won't find any of these creative heads except megalomaniacs that take credits for a team effort.

There's a very long discussion to be had on auteur theory, but when it comes down to it, as far as game development goes, I think teams make games, sure, but I think innovations make game industries. Games aren't just a passive media experience. They are a technology. A system. They need innovation in a way that books and film don't.

A good, competent team can toil away and produce a game that is well worth your money. Something to take pride in and enjoy and a good AAA title, through and through. But something like Mario 64 wasn't just a good game. Grand Theft Auto 3 wasn't just a good game. Minecraft wasn't just a good game. These games contributed to the future of gaming in a shocking and meaningful way.

Why do you think we remember Westwood Studios, Looking Glass, LucasArts, BULLFROG PRODUCTIONS. Because these teams were some of the most creative and beloved we had.

Third: saying that all the credit for a franchise goes to the creator is dumb. We have many, many games were the most creative ideas are explored in later editions.
AC: Black flag for example is the 4th, saying the developers who made it don't deserve credit for that is stupid.

Black Flag was a good game. I liked it a lot. But the game industry did not step forward because of it. Stuff like Black Flag and The Last of Us is just treading water, while the industry waits for the next grand idea to clone and iterate on. There's a point that comes with that stuff where we get tired of it. The next Assassin's Creed is announced and people yawn. But somewhere out there is an indie developer working on something new and unique, and it's going to blow us all away - then we will see a few years of everybody copying it, just like those years where everything was a FPS, RTS, Tony Hawk clone, Guitar Hero clone, sandbox game, cover shooter, Arkham-style melee combat, or battle royale game.

You can't predict what is coming next, but there's someone out there working on the next big thing right this second. The real question is, what is the industry doing to make sure this designer gets the support and recognition he needs to finish it? They will benefit greatly from their work, but for some reason, actively work against them.

Everything is a remix, is a remix, is a remix. Iteration is the name of the game.
The creation you are so fond of is knowing what to iterate on.

The "everything is a remix" is the thing that people say when they've gone too far down the creative nihilism rabbit hole. After all, when you get right down to it, we are just atoms formed into molecules formed into people riding on a big rock circling a star - does anything really matter from a perspective that far removed from everything?

We don't create the atoms. We don't create the molecules. We don't create the sunlight, or the trees, or the oxygen that we breathe. But it is absurd to think that this diminishes in any way the accomplishment of inventing the wheel.

Member

I was introduced to games because of my aunts, back in the day (16 bit era) they played Mortal Kombat and street fighter, and i never saw anyone complain about it being sexist. My mother sometimes still play some fighting games with me, we recently played soul calibur 6, and just like back in the day, when we also played the first one on the dreamcast, she picked Ivy, and you know what? I never heard any complaint about the game being sexist.
Normal people want to play to have fun, not to feel triggered by everything, not to want to be represented, they just want to enjoy their free time.
I'm really tired of these SJW without anything better to do, trying to push their politics into stuff that is just supposed to be fun, an escape from reality. If they want to do it so much, why don't they make their own games, instead of trying to change what others like? Create your goddamn IP, don't try to ruin what had already existed before just because you find it offensive.

Member

I can't, for the life of me understand why someone would want to look like this. Maybe I'm too old fashioned, but this person looks like some kind of insane clown band inspired emo attention grabbing teenager as far as style goes. How do you take someone who looks like this seriously.

Member

Who is stopping a group of women to make their own dev team? Why woman don't show the gaming industry how it has to be done? No one is stopping them if they want to do it. But no, let's just blame the industry withuot trying to do anithing.

Let's say we just focus on PS4 only for a moment.
Is the argument that there are a lot of female PS4 owners out there who are poorly served by the content available on the system?
Or maybe the argument is that there are a whole bunch of potential female PS4 owners who won't take the plunge because of the lack of female-led content?
Or is the argument that just having more men than women as playable characters or having sexualized female characters is just a bad thing, regardless of the audience or the scope of the project in relation to that audience?

They seem kind of not clear on this or maybe they are saying "all of the above" because they do kind of touch on all of these points.

So more than 40% of all game players in the UK are women.
Right but that's only part of the picture.

So, you know, if PS4 is unappealing to women because of the current library then a specifically female led game is not JUST a 60 buck game. It's a 300+ buck console and then a 60 buck game and potentially only that game.

Yet, if 40% of PS4 owners are women then surely there was already enough in the library to entice them to drop 300 bucks on a PS4 to begin with?

OR there is some other factor such as this 40% of women are playing their games on devices like smartphones or tablets or even a PC/Laptop that is not primarily intended for gaming?

When an article name drops GTAV does nobody just think "urgh, the lowest of low hanging fruit"?
Dude, I think I killed like 5 men in the prologue mission alone.
"Well in this game called Grand Theft Auto players can..." Jeez, give it a fucking rest already. Game is over 5 years old.

BIG focus on character designs, which kind of might be a valid point but it's just character designs. Why can't the artists just make what they want. If it's massively unpopular then that's their loss. If it's all good and popular, like old school Lara Croft then doesn't that prove that they are just serving their audience?

Wait, Joel is Ellie's brother? What? "One example is a survivor called Ellie in the apocalyptic game, The Last of Us, who is a secondary character to her brother in the original game but will be the main playable character in the upcoming sequel."

On the female protagonists bit,I still feel like games like Pokemon and The Last of Us are still inherently more popular with males. Does casting the lead characters as females have a measurable impact on anything? Again, I feel like a game with a female protagonist may not convince too many women to buy console PLUS game. I dunno.

Obviously app games with female leads might see more popularity IF more women are playing app games.

The part about all these great independent creators is fine but again it's like do you have a massive untapped audience of women with the equipment to play these games and a willingness to buy that equipment. Gone Home might be a great game for the ladies but are they even able to play it or willing to buy the stuff on which to play it?

Yes, people should support indie devs more. 100%. There's a reality there though that involves spending money on the games etc. I don't know if we've even established what % of women are even willing to spend their disposable income on video games.

Though I suppose you could say that women don't buy games because of the lack of representation.
It's a catch 22 though. If women feel excluded to the point of not buying consoles then a game aimed at women retailing for 30 bucks comes with an additional 300+ buck charge for the console and accessories etc.
It's not fucking cheap to play as Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn or Senua in Hellblade and it might not even appeal to the average women's entertainment tastes anyway. I don't know.

Even growing the number of women in the industry does not mean they will just create games that are intended to appeal to women. If a woman in the industry wanted to make a big name for herself then probably she'd want to create a best-selling game. Not a total pander-fest that doesn't even get coverage from the very outlets who told her to make "inclusive" games in the first place.

"Art house and indie games are usually more diverse and investigate subjects like sexism. One cool example is Nicki Homaj where the player wears a pink wig and high heels with embedded sensors and responds to sexist comments by moving controllers."

Yes, this sounds like the massive hit to finally challenge the dominance of those awful male-led AAA games. So roll up, roll up, ladies and hand over your 29.99 to play "Sexual Harassment Simulator 2020 on your shiny new PS5". Are you fucking kidding me?

These articles always leave me thinking what should be done? Why? Will it work?

YES! The video game industry is male dominated. Especially on the console and PC side.
How can you engineer this industry so that women will buy more PlayStations and play more AAA titles on them?
How can you do that without alienating at least some of your existing audience?

Even with a big push, I'd love to know how many regular women, with a passing interest in gaming, are going to go out and buy a 300 dollar PS4 + Last of Us 2 bundle for the 20 hours of game time. I'd love to see how that compares to the number of dudes who will buy the game.

Honestly I think activists are SO drawn to gaming because they genuinely seem to believe that, since they are so interactive, games are able to influence and change and almost exert power of those who play them. So if you could just play that game about street harassment you'd "absorb" the message and become an ally to the cause.

I get that you're frustrated with the bigger picture and all, but sexism and political correctness can totally be applied to the way that cartoon (game) characters are designed. It's important to remember that these characters don't simply blink into existence. They are designed and approved by people that have a specific vision they are trying to develop. These people have motives and sometimes it's valuable to take the time to question them...

Not in the case of this Kangaroo, though. To be honest, she looks great. She just looks intentionally designed to look like a specific gender. No problem here.

Member

I get that you're frustrated with the bigger picture and all, but sexism and political correctness can totally be applied to the way that cartoon (game) characters are designed. It's important to remember that these characters don't simply blink into existence. They are designed and approved by people that have a specific vision they are trying to develop. These people have motives and sometimes it's valuable to take the time to question them...

Not in the case of this Kangaroo, though. To be honest, she looks great. She just looks intentionally designed to look like a specific gender. No problem here.

Member

Just for the sake of curiosity, I looked up the people pictured and named in the article.
Who are these notable figures in the gaming industry? What games have they worked on?

Truth is they are basically nobodies. We aren't talking about people working on big game projects or anything here.
I'm not even sure to what extent some of them are involved in even the indie scene.
If anything, I think you could argue that they are not experts in gaming at all and probably have very little to offer the industry besides shallow criticism.

Nina Freeman is a video game designer who makes games about sexuality and self reflection.
Her university thesis project became her first commercially released game, Cibele.
You can google it yourself folks but it seems to be an hour long game based on the actual real life of the developer.

She also created "How Do you Do It" which just looks so awesome, check it out, you guys:
FINALLY! Once I show my wife this game she will be into gaming for sure!

Looks like she made Bum Rush, which looks maybe like some kind of dating sim.
The company she works for now created Gone Home.
She is the MOST prominent video game person shown in the article.

Next up are Erika Clegg and Axelle Van de Goor who basically just have graphic design companies. I think that's relevant for "Design Week" but for gaming I don't honestly think they have very much to offer at all.

The crazy lookin' blue hair lady is Jasmine Idun Isdrake. She worked at EA (don't know in what context and on what games) and founded her own game innovation lab but there's really not a lot of info out there about either. I think maybe her lab thing shut down in 2017. I think she supports student game projects, which is cool. I think she also runs paid game design workshops, which is cool too.

She also did a TEDx talk, which you can enjoy here (just joking, it's not enjoyable):
So basically people who have done the square root of fuck all in videogames but see fit to recommend how the industry can do better, I guess.

Member

They just want to destroy video games, because it's still a mostly predominantly male market that most women despise.

Stop fucking excusing or trying to arrange or discuss with them, unless you want to see video game continuing to be destroy. Don't even let them have a bite of they'll fuck you rightfully like the hypocrite you are (in case you didn't notice in all these affairs...)

Member

You know what. Nevermind. Let those "devs", "designers" or whatever their ego want to be called and savour their own poison while I'm playing the most sexist game ever: Ace Combat. Yeah sexist Ace Combat /s

Actually I think they should target this series instead. Spam those hatred missiles towards it. I wonder what kind of stories they could pull... /s

Member

You know what most of these articles never talk about? How many women actually prefer to have sexy characters. Outside of one, every other girl i've ever met in online games, dressed their characters in more sexualized ways than most guys did. Playing some f2p mmo's, i know some that wasted houndreds of dollars just trying to get a new shiny "bikini" armor, just because they wanted to look like that. They also had no problems playing with a male character, as long as they find them atractive.

Member

While game journalists are busy counting the breakthrough games with brown people and females leads (those not inherently good or bad) they don't care about the in game transactions... So review scores are not affected I guess?

EDIT: it's important to note that there were consultants who did the opposite a few years ago, replace female/minority leads from games, or make them less visible (Naughtly Dog was apparently told not to include Ellie on the game's cover because "it would hurt sales") ... now they get pressure on the other side, which is no better, the worst aspect of is is reviewers at places like Eurogamers/Polygons, etc. who partake in this moral witch hunt -- I can't read reviews anymore.